Where primary school was sunshine and cherry blossom punctuated with moments of pure, white snowfall, secondary school was foggy and damp and biting cold. And I am not just saying that for dramatic effect: it struck me smack between the eyes when I sat down to write this that the meteorological backdrop of my attending Wickersley comp reads ‘gloomy’.
I hated secondary school.
Six weeks earlier, we’d been playing tiggy bob down, wearing odd, neon socks, enjoying learning, enjoying childhood, enjoying playtime. In secondary school, there was no play time and there was no playground, “It’s a yard, it’s break and don’t look at my sister” that from one of the five of us from Herringthorpe who went up to Wickersley together.
Nowadays, 12 – 15 year old me would be diagnosed with social anxiety and possibly a little depression. I’d likely be considering dying my hair blue.
I think I’m glad I’d got through it without a diagnosis, that I worked things out, that I went through it to be who I am to day blah blah. But also, it would have been nice to know I wasn’t alone in how I felt or at least to understand why i was feeling what i did.
Some of my anxiety was absorbed from my mum. I must have shown traits of social awkwardness: they fought quite hard for me to go to a school with a six form so I wouldn’t have to transition again after another five years. This was at a time that nobody fought that hard to go to any particular school. I can’t remember feeling that socially awkward before I left primary. Maybe that’s because the adults around me managed it on my behalf.
I do know that – while I was late developer (periods starting between my 14th and 15th birthday. Breasts going from A cup to C literally (and I mean literally) overnight – the transition to secondary collided with spots and greasy hair and hormones. I do know now that my hormones cause me anxiety and restless nights a little depression and a feeling that nobody wants to be bothered by me. I think essentially I had severe PMT for 2 – 3 years before my periods came in regularly and that this clouded how i perceived everything i was experiencing at the time.
For a long time, I was convinced I was ostrasiced, bullied, belittled. But when I think back on it, I am not sure that I was. I can actually remember a lot of good people trying to reach me in friendship. I remember some very funny moments, times that should have hung together as a happy experience.There was a heaviness hanging over me, though, a fog and I couldn’t reach out of..
I put on a front for a lot of it. Not in the first year – I think I looked like a startled lamb. I’d still regularly get mistaken for a boy by adults, I had my cheap, wire frame glasses and a green Head bag when I should have gotten myself a pink Puma one. At the school disco, people were wearing kiss me quick hats and finding someone to snog at the slow dance at the end. I still wanted to skid on my knees on the floor and make up routines to Mel and Kim songs.
When my periods became regular, things settled a little..at least for 3 weeks of the month,
I started to realise I could make people laugh and I saw some of the upsides of growing up. But the fog would still descend regulary: I’d become down, withdrawn and effectively ghost people who could have been life long friends if I could have managed that hormonal roller coaster better. To be honest, I didn’t even know I was on a roller coaster – it’s only from this vantage point of decades later that I understand what was happening to me,
‘Lucky’ for me, once I turned 15 nobody was mistaking me for a boy. There wasn’t an offlicence or a pub or a club in the land where I couldn’t get served (fun fact, I have never been ID’d). I discovered the burning, warm comfort of THunderbird, of Archers, of snakebite. The only friend for life I left school with was booze. I promises, that’s not as tragic as it sounds. Still, it’s noteworthy.
Cogito Ergo Mum 